Pure, Sweet Water and Feculence

       Recently, one of my sons bought a rental house in a small town here in Southeast Missouri.  My wife and I have been helping him in any way we can to get it ready to rent out.  The price was necessarily low; so the product was small and in disrepair . . . but most notably, absolutely filthy with a gagging odor of dog urine saturating everything.  I spent large parts of two days on my hands and knees scouring the commode and bathtub.  We have since been told by neighbors that the lady who lived there had three kids and fourteen dogs living with her.

         I have at times in the past proclaimed that "people just do the best they can" (usually in my most pious voice and suggesting a certain latent forgiveness on my part for their failures and one's need to overlook their weaknesses).  I don't consider myself somehow a candidate for a blue ribbon in cleanliness; I'm often a bit lazy I suppose in that category---but, good grief, the feculence (sweet word) of this place was horrendous.

          How could someone live in these conditions?  I'm sure socio-economic and psychological explanations abound in answer to that question---at least, explaining  a possible necessity on the part of many people to so live.  However, in this case, there was running water---pure, sweet water!   And, you know, after dealing with this mess, I just don't feel very forgiving.  (Don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm trying diligently to be politically correct here.)  Perhaps, our current culture spends too much time forgiving people's failures and not enough time encouraging them to have higher expectations of themselves.
          As an educator, I spent many hours quietly influencing students to have higher and higher goals for themselves--one of the greater accomplishments I had (many of my fellow teachers likewise sought that outcome).  Many of those students  have gone on to success, it seems to me, in almost every area of their lives because they accepted that summons as teenagers.  I certainly pray that none of them are living in filthy, smelly little houses unwilling to "clean up" their act!  That would be a mighty sorrow for me.